Environmental regulators said Wednesday that construction on the Harbor Point project in Baltimore could begin by the end of the month, after they approved a plan to measure air quality at the former factory site laced with toxic chemicals. Harbor Point developers will begin taking samples Thursday to establish a baseline for air quality near the project, where construction plans call for temporary exposure of contaminated soil. State and federal regulators still must approve a plan to monitor the air quality while construction is underway.

A Baltimore-based organization dedicated to improving children's health by bettering their homes received a $1 million grant Wednesday to launch projects across the country to benefit low-income children suffering from asthma. The Green & Healthy Homes Initiative will work with the Calvert Foundation on this effort that got the $1 million boost from the Social Innovation Fund, run by the Corporation for National and Community Service. The grant pays to launch a project that will eventually include work on homes in five regions of the country that have not yet been chosen, but which have a high incidence of children hospitalized for treatment of asthma.

Stay home, close the doors, draw the shades, forget the lawn, raise the thermostat, keep the kids inside, do not paint the deck, do not paint your fingernails, do not touch the barbecue fluid and, Baltimore, do not - repeat, DO NOT - apply hair- spray. It was an Ozone Action Day. Yesterday was not only Ozone Action Day but also the first OAD of the Ozone Season, which is now an annual event in Maryland life, marking the languid stretch of days ranging from May 1 to Sept. 30, corresponding with highway vacations and outdoor barbecues and the mindless pleasure of applying the power of crude rotary engines to the art of gardening.

The shelving of a plan to build a new CSX rail facility in the West Baltimore residential neighborhood of Morrell Park was decried recently as a setback for regional job growth and a sign of failed leadership by CSX. But articles in The Baltimore Sun and the Baltimore Business Journal omitted mention of the successful leadership of health advocates and community members who insisted that specific health consequences of the planned facility be addressed....

The air we breathe may not the cleanest in the country, but it's getting better all the time. A recent report from the American Lung Association found the Baltimore-Washington corridor has shown improvement in air quality in recent years. There are many reasons for this, and some have little to do with public policy decisions. The economic recession has reduced driving, industrial activity and energy consumption generally, a fact that has improved air quality in most places over the past two years.

Air quality will be poor in Baltimore on Sunday, according to state officials. Higher than normal air pollution concentrations could threaten sensitive groups like children, the elderly and people with asthma, heart disease or lung disease. People who may fall into these categories should avoid strenous activity or exercise outdoors. Late Saturday, the Maryland Department of the Environment issued Sunday's code orange air quality alert for the Baltimore metro region. More information about the alert can be found on the Department of the Enviornment's website or by calling the Maryland Air Quality Hotline at 410-537-3247.

Poor air quality, at levels hazardous to children and the elderly, is forecast in the Baltimore area Tuesday, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment. The agency expects "Code Orange" conditions between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., a level that is unhealthy for sensitive groups, which also include those with respiratory conditions. High levels of ozone are forecast thanks to temperatures possibly reaching the lower 90s and stagnant air conditions allowing pollution levels to build.

Despite it being one of the hottest summers on record in Baltimore, "code red" air pollution days are at their lowest levels since 2009. There has been only one "code red" day, considered unhealthy for everyone -- June 29, the day intense heat fueled the deadly derecho storm. That is according to AirNow, an air-quality website maintained by a handful of federal government agencies. There have been 14 days with "code orange" conditions in at least part of the Baltimore area so far this summer.

4:41 p.m. update: The Maryland Department of the Environment has extended its "Code Orange" air quality alert through Thursday evening. Children, the elderly, people with asthma and other sensitive groups are urged to avoid strenuous activity or exercise outdoors. 3:17 p.m. update: Today has set another new mark for hottest day of 2013 in Baltimore, with BWI at 96 degrees as of 3 p.m. With humidity, it feels like 100 degrees there. At the Inner Harbor, it feels like 103 degrees with an air temperature of 98 degrees.

Temperatures are expected to reach into the low 90s across the Baltimore region on Friday as warnings about poor air quality continue, according to the National Weather Service. At 2:54 p.m., the temperature at BWI was 89. Downtown at the Maryland Science Center it was 95. A Code Orange air quality alert is in place throughout the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan region, which means sensitive or unhealthy people may "experience health problems due to air pollution," namely ozone, the weather service said.

At first, Baldwin Homes didn't build green. Then it dipped its corporate toe in - one home here, another there. Now the Gambrills company is constructing an entire green neighborhood. It's the story of U.S. home building writ small. Green accounted for 2 percent of the new-home market in 2005, according to a report by industry data provider McGraw Hill Construction. By last year it had ballooned to 23 percent - nearly a quarter. "I don't think green is a niche market anymore," said Michele A. Russo, director of green content at McGraw Hill Construction.

Poor air quality, at levels hazardous to children and the elderly, is forecast in the Baltimore area Tuesday, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment. The agency expects "Code Orange" conditions between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., a level that is unhealthy for sensitive groups, which also include those with respiratory conditions. High levels of ozone are forecast thanks to temperatures possibly reaching the lower 90s and stagnant air conditions allowing pollution levels to build.

The owner of a planned power plant in Fairfield faces millions of dollars in fines and has been ordered to halt construction because company officials didn't buy enough emissions credits to offset air pollution the facility is expected to emit, according to state officials. Maryland Department of the Environment officials could fine Energy Answers International, the New York-based company that is building the plant, more than $8 million for the violation — $25,000 for each day since it began construction last August.

Temperatures are forecast to hit the lower 90s Tuesday with the heat and sunshine fueling a rise in ozone pollution, prompting an air quality alert. A "code orange" air quality alert is in effect, a hazardous level for children, the elderly and those with respiratory conditions. Sunshine-fueled chemical reactions involving fossil fuel exhaust and other particles was spawning a rise in ozone, a gas found high up in the atmosphere that is considered a pollutant closer to the ground.

Whether the air quality in a hookah lounge is outstandingly fresh or alarmingly toxic, the real benefit to those who use these facilities is they can continue their lifestyle without endangering us ( "Study discovers poor air quality in hookah lounges," June 12). We have to suffer toxic smoke fumes every time we go outdoors in Baltimore. What good would a study do anyway? We know unquestionably that tobacco smoke along with secondhand smoke makes the user and the bystander eventually suffer a premature, agonizing and slow death.

Although hookah lounges are becoming more popular, smoking flavored tobacco through water pipes creates hazardous concentrations of indoor air pollution, according to a new study from the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at the Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. In fact, airborne particulate matter and carbon monoxide levels exceeded those found in restaurants and bars that allowed cigarette smoking, the study found. "There is a mistaken notion that because the tobacco smoke is drawn through the water, it's somehow cleaner or not as bad," Patrick Breysse, a professor in the department of environmental health sciences and the study's senior author, said in an interview.

A Code Orange air quality alert, meaning conditions are unhealthy for sensitive groups, is in effect for much of Maryland on Monday, a relatively rare occurrence outside of the summer months. The alert is because of warming temperatures and a high pressure system that is making the air stagnant over the region, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment. That is causing fine particles to build in the air. That is different than the common air quality alerts issued during summer months, which are most often linked to high levels of ozone pollution, which can be exacerbated by hot weather.

Air quality has improved a lot in Maryland and nationwide over the past 15 years, according to a new report, but summertime smog levels in Harford and Prince George's counties are still among the worst in the country. Despite strides made virtually everywhere in reducing soot or particle pollution, nearly half of all Americans still live in places where smog or soot pollution makes it dangerous to breathe at times, the American Lung Association reported Wednesday in its 15th assessment of the nation's air quality.

Ana Rule stepped onto a balcony outside the Inn at the Black Olive Sunday morning to check the first results of an unusual air-monitoring effort - one intended to make sure official monitoring across the street is accurate. The hotel in Baltimore's Fells Point overlooks Harbor Point, the planned $1.8 billion mixed-use development on land where a factory once processed chromium. Contaminated soil - capped years ago to keep the toxic chemicals under control - would be temporarily exposed during the early part of the work there.